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by Im_The_Doctor (Bofur1)



Category: Video Blogging RPF, Youtube RPF
Genre: Angst and Feels, Canon Compliant, Depression, Exhaustion, Existential Angst, Henrik needs a hug, Insomnia, Mid-Canon, Overworking, Sleep Deprivation, Stress
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-20
Updated: 2019-11-20
Packaged: 2021-02-18 02:03:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21503446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bofur1/pseuds/Im_The_Doctor
Summary: A good doctor puts his patients first. That's the motto that Henrik always swears by, even if it means working himself to the brink of exhaustion.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 36





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_Someone make it stop_.

Henrik’s hands wouldn’t grip his clipboard and pen properly. His hold was clumsy; the pads of his fingers were too dry and the beds of his fingernails throbbed like they were bruised.

He had been looking at this same page for so, so long. It felt like he had screws wound into his eye sockets, twisting tighter and tighter into his skull. Letters seemed to swirl and hover off the page, only to freeze when he looked directly at them. One third of his notes were English, another German, the final…an amalgamation, alien gibberish.

 _Start again_.

* * *

Coffee grounds tasted like nothing but sludge and ash on his tongue. With every ugly, audible gulp from his mug, he could feel them dragging down his sore throat with the scalding fluids. Caffeine would serve as a cruel master, whipping his lazy mind and heart rate into a canter that would lead to a trot.

Before long, the steam had formed blinding clouds of fog on his glasses. When was the last time he had cleaned them? Did it even matter?

Did anything matter?

Glasses. They would only be smudged again the next time he rubbed his eyes.

* * *

There was a wrinkle in the fitted sheet on his cot; he could feel the fold pressing into his back, a slight but persistent irritation as he gazed numbly into the darkness. Why bother getting up to smooth it out? If he rose, the carousel of worries and stresses and fears would start anew, spiraling into madness that would never let him sleep.

He turned over, pressing his face into his pillow. It smelled like sweat and grease from his matted hair. The pillowcase needed to be washed. In fact there was a heap of unattended laundry gathering in the corner of the lab, soon to become a small mountain. At this very moment he was trying to sleep in clothes four days old.

His hair needed to be washed too.

* * *

He had hoped and prayed so dearly that there would still be hot water after the others showered. If his sluggish brain had suggested it, he would have gone to rinse down sooner, but as it was he stepped in and was greeted with water just chilly enough to make his head swim. Perhaps he should be sitting down.

No. No, this would be better. Steeling himself, he inhaled and forced his head under the stream. His nerves bristled miserably and his vision blurred and stung as rivulets ran into his eyes but the ends justified the means. He stepped out a few minutes later shivering shivering so violently that his knees didn’t want to hold him. _Shock to the system_.

He stayed awake.

* * *

One of the fluorescent lights overhead was buzzing. Back and forth he paced the lab in a fever state, dry eyes flying back and forth and back and forth, trying to locate the specific source so he could hurl a paperweight at it. At this rate he was seeing spots and the floor felt floaty underneath him.

He couldn’t concentrate in these conditions! He could feel the vibration in the soft spot just behind his earlobe, a piercing and constant monotony. How could Jack sleep with the racket?!

He could sleep through anything.

* * *

 _A good doctor puts his patients first_.

 _Jack. Our Jack, my Jack_. His care was the only motivation Henrik needed in his life. It was the only one he had. He bent over him in his bed, wiping his colorless, expressionless face with a cloth. The repetitive motion cloyed at his wrist and shoulder, yet he persisted.

He breathed into the push and pull, watching how it made tiny strands of Jack’s hair flutter. He knew where every one belonged, where the dark, greasy waves were meant to part. He knew every faint discoloration, every scar and freckle, every pore. If he so desired, he could do this with his eyes closed. In his sleep.

* * *

He was aware that he was crying, but he couldn’t comprehend why. Self-pity, perhaps? Even his sobs, painful and grating as they were, were halfhearted—pitiful, wheezing little hiccups in a bid for air to fill his tight chest.

He was so tired. His fatigue was a disease, crawling into the marrow of his bones and wrenching, squeezing, until every movement made the room pirouette, while his body was heavy, heavy, heavy. When would it end?

 _When you stop letting the weakness affect you. When you prove that you can be strong again, that you do not need help. Run yourself down to the ground and then claw your way back up. That will show them. That will show him. You are not that man you used to be_.

That much was true. The man he used to be knew how to sleep. The man he used to be knew how to smile.


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